The Devil In You

Some days I am more poetic than others and this used to be hard for me to be okay with, even though to define what that even means is nearly impossible. A poet should always be poetic, no? Have the words and ability to make all things more beautiful. But the truth is I have many sides, many shapes, many forms of expressing how I observe and move through this multifaceted existence. Sometimes you can dress it up in a pretty box all you want but the reality is nothing but gruesome cold hard facts. There are days like today, freezing rain outside and me warm as toast inside with my morning coffee, still in a muffled sleepy state as I shuffle from bed to the writing room and nestle in among my books and papers. Staring up into the white winter sky, I remember a hazy dream I had last night soaked full of lust and carnal fulfillment to the tune of multiple toned and writhing bodies torturing and pleasuring one another into an aching shattered explosion of collective ecstasy. Faceless except for their mouths, the figures were the embodiment of greedy physical desire, the desire to please oneself by violating another. Watching and being watched. We are creatures of unspeakable cravings and yet we are also beings of great ingenuity, generosity, openness and compassion when we want to be. I once read that we imagine a wide variety of sexual fantasies we would never actually want to live out in real life. The imagination provides a cocoon, a buffer, a safe space to play around with dangerous scenarios. I’ll leave that right there and let you decide how you feel about it, my only point is that people are far stranger inside their nasty little heads than we admit and there are days when all this self-righteous prudishness strikes me not as noble strength but as a sad sort of weakness. Too often we cringe at ourselves just for being human. Sure there’s something to be said for decorum and modesty in certain circles but there is also the fact that few things delight me more than reading about other people’s perversions which in no small way validate and celebrate my own. This revelation is no doubt revolting to some and endearing to others but at the end of the day, here we are. There is the truth and there is nibbling around the truth and one is more valuable than the other. Because your last breath is coming and possibly sooner than you can guess. And when it’s all shadow closing in on you and your next heartbeat is the final for all eternity, do you want to have known yourself in all your weird deviations or greet death only ever having propped up an empty hollow shell? There’s writing for them, and there’s writing for yourself, and you have to decide which is more sacred to you. I was brought up to please, to be polite and palatable, and the older I get the less I care about the comfort of others. As a stiff wind moves through the tall bare trees, I crack the window even though the air is a frigid bite against my hands. Running a hot bath, I sink into the liquid pool, observe my alabaster skin beneath the vanilla scented bubbles, and wonder what the hell is wrong with me that I spill secrets on the internet as if there were no consequence. It’s funny how humans are. We want to hide in plain sight, to be seen and understood and yet remain a mystery. We want to believe we are immune to caring what other people think of us. And in our backwards attempt to own what little of our story we have left, we seek control by giving it all away.